DETAILED LIST OF BIliDS. 
209 
which correspond precisely with Mr. Gould's figure, and 
that between these specimens and the dull winter plumaged 
R. rnficentris I have procured partly in the plains and partly 
in the hills every intermediate stage of plumage, and I 
have besides this a stage which I believe to be immediately 
anterior to the R. erythroprocta dress, in which the whole 
head, back, and breast are black,, and there is no trace of 
any frontal band. According to my view the frontal band 
first appears about May or June, as a narrow nearly pure 
white stripe ; a grey tint spreads gradually from behind it ; 
the band by degrees extends further and further back, 
losing its purity of colour as it does so, while the grey 
shade which extends behind it spreads further and further 
down the back, becoming purer and purer grey as time 
passes on, until the frontal band and the shade merge in 
one another, and the whole upper surface has become an 
uniform dull brownish grey. 
I may remark that the extent to which the black extends 
on the breast varies excessively in individuals in even pre- 
cisely the same stages of plumage, and is of no specific 
value whatever. 
Numerous nestlings of this species were obtained j the 
bird itself was excessively common, and must have hatched in 
June. If this species be not identical with R. rufiventris 
the question arises. What becomes of R. rvfiventris ? and 
where does R. rufiventris breed ? It absolutely deserts the 
plains of India and the lower hills by the end of April, and 
in all the innumerable collections made in the Himalayas, 
which I have examined, many of them far in the interior 
from Darjeling to Murree, I have never met with a single 
specimen of the R. rufiventris form killed within these limits 
between the end of May and the beginning of August. 
Specimens killed in August, both in the plains and in the 
hills, are of the R. phcenicuroides type, while those killed in 
April are generally of the pure black type. 
The upper surface of the early July specimens is ex- 
cessively close to that of R. tithys, but the wings of course 
want the white patch, and the grey portion of the head just 
above the lores, and the black frontal band are paler and 
p 
